Burnettiquette

High School teacher acquitted in dirty dancing case

I wish this was about some teacher pretending to be Patrick Swayze in his classroom, or something.

Instead, Nathan Grigsby, a Georgia high school teacher, was on trial this week on five charges that he contributed to the delinquency of a minor by not moving quickly enough to stop a striptease-like dance routine performed by several male students in his classroom.

No one - not Grigsby, not the male students, not the students watching - denied the sexual nature of the dance routine.

At issue was how much of the routine Grigsby saw and whether he moved quickly enough to stop the dance. Prosecutors argued Grigsby saw plenty - maybe the whole dance - and that he let it continue too long before stopping it, and even condoned it by laughing and applauding along with his students. He says he didn't condone anything, and that he didn't see much 'cause he was distracted. And when he did see the dance, he stopped it.

The jury sided with Grigsby on Wednesday.

Maybe the prosecutors should've gone after the parents for allowing their kids to learn and apparently get good at stripper dance moves.

Oh wait. That wouldn't happen 'cause parents can't monitor their teenagers every second of the day.

Why didn't the teacher get at least that same consideration?

Incidentally, prosecutors are still moving forward with charges of indecency against the boys in the dance crew.

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Breaking News, Maybe? Tiger Woods Changes Nickname to Other Giant Feline

Eldrick "Tiger" Woods, in the tradition of John Mellencamp AKA Johnny Cougar AKA John Cougar Mellencamp, and Sean "Diddy" Combs, known at various times in history as Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs, and Sean "Puffy" Combs," has decided that his adulturous affairs - revealed to the public over the past six months - warrant a name change in keeping with his rehabilitative efforts.

Woods believes "Tiger" will be forever tied to the guy who cheated on his spouse. But he still likes big cats. So in compromise and considering his infidelity, he's decided that "Cheetah" would be a more appropriate nickname. That's right, Eldrick 'Cheetah' Woods.

One more thing: April Fools!

Go ahead, laugh. You know you want to...unless you're my wife.

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Teen Pregnancy Up

I really have nothing earthshattering to say about this one. I'm just curious as to why for the first time in more than 10 years teen pregnancy rates in the United States went up, rather than sliding or holding steady. The abortion rate also rose slightly.

The Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based non-profit that researches and promotes sexual and reproductive health (according to its Web site), says teen pregancy reflected a 4% rise in '06, along with a 1% increase in abortions. The study also says that black and Latino teens are getting pregnant at essentially the same rate now, but that both are getting pregnant still much more often than non-Hispanic white teens.

Guttmacher suggests in its study that a corresponding sharp increase in abstinence-only education over the past decade or so might be to blame for the increase in pregnancies and abortions, since it teaches teens that their only safe option is to just not have sex and doesn't educate them on how to protect themselves if (they're dumb enough to not listen, and) they have sex anyway.

The old school side of me says it's a good thing to tell kids not to have sex till they're grown and in committed relationships, because if they have sex as teenagers they risk pregnancy and babies that they can't afford and probably aren't emotionally mature enough to care for either.

If you wonder why I left out "disease," it's 'cause that's a possibility with anyone having sex outside an exclusive sexual relationship - teenager or adult.

The pragmatic side of me says for every two or three kids who take the advice to abstain till they're older, there are probably a few more who are just oblivious, who just aren't going to listen, who just couldn't care less. For these kids, like or not - and regardless of your religious or philosophical beliefs, there probably has to be a safety net of safe sex education, if for no other reasons than to help stem the tide of disease and unwanted pregnancy.

Again, in my perfect world we'd just tell kids to not have sex 'cause they may die or have babies, and that would be enough. That would fit nicely with my religious philosophies, but that would not be practical...in my opinion. Most licensed drivers are relatively safe, according to data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. And most drive at reasonable speeds and wear seatbelts, etc. But some drivers will always be jackasses behind the wheel. Thus driver's ed, speed limits, traffic lights, stop signs, etc. - all rules or requirements that all drivers are subject to.

The alternative is to have all teenagers watch a marathon of MTV's documentary series Teen Mom and 16 & Pregnant. If they don't listen to reason or subject themselves to traditional sex ed, then watching these shows should cure 'em of having sex as kids. If that doesn't work as a backup, I don't know what will.

Or we could go all Star Trek on the kids and give 'em brain implants at birth that will prevent pregnancy and dampen sexual desire, but dissolve when the kids turn 18. Hmmm, that might be illegal though.

If you have an educated guess or informed opinion that run contrary to what Guttmacher suggests, that don't involve aliens, black helicopters, brain implants, or immaculate conception, then do share.

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#Roxxxy cares about what you have to say

Please tell me you've heard of Roxxxy? If not, follow the link. She's not a porn star, but rather the world's first sex robot.

And I thought the Futurama episode featuring Fry and Bender falling in love with a Lucy Liu-bot was just funny. It has come true!

Seriously though, the most fascinating thing about Roxxxy to me isn't her flexibility - and I'm just assuming she bends like Gumby for $7,000 to $9,000 apiece. It's that her makers are marketing Roxxxy as good for mental stimulation and intimate conversation. She is, they argue, a total companion, not just some cheap rubberized robot without feelings, to have sex with.

Think about that one. Douglas Hines, the engineer who invented Roxxxy, and spelled her name with that triple-X, says she's best at conversation. And her other gifts are secondary.

You buyin' that? I'm not.

But apparently, Roxxxy comes with multple optional personalities, including two named Frigid Farrah, and Wild Wendy, respectively. Yes, you can purposely choose a chatty, live-in companion whose first name is "Frigid." And she's not rich and doesn't come with a trousseau.

Hines says Roxxxy comes with a laptop that is programmed to make her smarter over time by drawing from the World Wide Web to update her programming and expand her vocabulary. Hines likes soccer. His Roxxxy discusses Manchester United with him. And his Roxxxy snores.

I'm still trying to decide if the whole marketing message that Roxxxy's good for the mind first and loins second is brilliant promotion, or if Hines and co. are just delusional enough to think whoever spends up to $9K for a boom-chicka-wah-wah-bot is doing so for the conversation.

Surely they didn't consult the D&D club members who will be pooling allowance money to buy Roxxxys for their folks' basements.

PS. Follow me, please, at twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Roman Polanski

In case you live in a cave, thirty-two years ago at the age of 44, movie director Roman Polanski, "hosted" a 13-year-old female date at then friend Jack Nicholson's house. Polanski gave the girl champagne and drugs, and when she was good 'n drousy, he raped her. He later admitted the sexual encounter as part of a botched, wonky, plea agreement with prosecutors in Los Angeles. The agreement called for Polanski to spend 90 days in a secure psychiatric facility, AKA psych jail, being evaluated. Following his evaluation, if the shrinks did not consider him a threat, he'd likely be done with jail, would go on probation, and would have to get counseling, etc.. At the end of his psych incarceration, the judge in the case hinted that he might disregard the plea deal and sentence Polanski to something harsher, in order to appease the public.

So Polanski fled to France, where he was still a citizen. And that's where he's been since, living his life, starting a new family (wife, two daughters), making movies and winning an Oscar, and being hailed as a cultural and artistic icon, till yesterday when police in Switzerland arrested Polanski and held him on that 31-year-old rape case from the U.S.

Pundits and politicians in France and Switzerland are calling for Polanski's release, saying the case is too old to resume, the collective consciousness of the U.S. is too puritanical, and that U.S. authorities should let bygones be bygones.

Friends and fans in Europe and the U.S. say Polanski has suffered enough in life, being exiled all these years from the U.S., being tormented by Nazis during WWII, and dealing with the murder of his first wife Sharon Tate, by Charles Manson and his gang of loons.

So what do I think? Bring him back and lock his Oscar-winning butt up!

Here's my logic:

• Sure, the judge in the Polanski case back in the day, may have been a fame seeker, but criminal law doesn't require a judge to abide by a plea deal between prosecutors and a defendant, if the judge doesn't think the terms of the deal are just. So whatever his motivation, I can't be too mad at the judge for balking at 90 days in psych jail as a sufficient sentence for the rape of a 13-year-old.
• If Polanski wasn't famous, this would not be a public debate right now.
• If a woman whose husband beat her declined to press charges, in most jurisdictions law enforcement would proceed to charge him anyway. So when Polanski's 13-year-old victim - obviously now an adult - says she doesn't want the case against him to proceed, I feel for her desire to move on, but the case should go on. Besides, her judgment may be clouded, since he paid her in a financial settlement from a civil suit she filed against him over the rape.
• If Polanski wasn't famous, no one would even dream of entertaining his claim that his victim was a real-life Lolita and enthusiastic about their encounter.
• Even if you fell for Polanski's Lolita defense, how do you justify the booze and drugs? Consensual sex partners don't need to be drugged first.
• If Polanski wasn't famous, and had instead been your weird, creepy-looking neighbor back in the day, you'd be calling for a new judge to drop the hammer on him. Same goes if he was one of the guys from the trailer park or the projects on the other side of the tracks.
• If that guy from the trailer park or the projects cited his horrific childhood and adult tragedies as factors in his crime, we'd all tell him - say it with me now - That's all sad, but it's no excuse to rape a child!

Let's review. Regardless of whether the judge was fame-seeking or not, here are a few of the things that troubled him about Polanski's deal: Polanski gave his victim multiple glasses of champagne; fed her quaaludes; performed oral, vaginal, and anal sex on her, even after she said asked him to stop, and even after she said she felt like she was suffering an asthma attack; and had the presence of mind to lie to a visitor who unwittingly interrupted the rape, and told that person he was getting dressed.

Yeah, I thought The Piano was a great movie too. But Polanski needs to face a judge in this country, where he committed and admitted his crime.

PS. Here's a doozy for ya: My Friday column was about two South Florida men accused of horribly mutilating two horses, so they could butcher the animals and sell their meat. I mourned the loss of the animals but said I was disturbed by what appears to be an increasing callousness toward human victims of violent crime. I suggested that we shouldn't care less about animal victims of violent crime, but we should definitely care more about human victims of violent crime. Half the reader responses I received argued that humans aren't real victims like animals, because humans bring crime on themselves. Hmmm, does that enlightened view apply to 13-year-old rape victims too?

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Quick Hits

What's crackin' friends and frienemies? It is a busy Thursday, so I'm gonna keep this short, which loosely translated means long.

First, don't forget to read my column tomorrow. Some of you will get it right away. Others won't like it 'cause it touches on a cultural boogeyman - a racial/ethnic issue. Boo! Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Don't get tense. It's just my opinion. And trust me, it'll be food for thought. We all know that sometimes the healthiest food doesn't go down smoothly. Anyway, I'll link the column tomorrow. And for once, would some of you please join me in my online chat at 1 p.m. tomorrow at this address - http://www.miamiherald.com/qna/forum/james_burnett/index.html? You're gonna make me develop a complex. Last week, I was left hanging like the wallflower on prom night.

Second, U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R - South Carolina) is an idiot - not because he's a Repubican or because he disapproves of Pres. Obama's healthcare reform plans. Wilson's an idiot because he disrespected the office of the presidency last night by shouting over a sitting president, during a live address, and calling the President of the United States a liar. What Wilson did was worse than when American celebrities (you, Gwyneth Paltrow!) talk to foreign media and complain about living in the US. The worst a few moronic Democratic congressmen did during live addresses by former Pres. George W. Bush was hiss. That was disrespectful too, but doesn't rise to the level of interrupting a sitting president to call him a liar. And don't try any partisan crap w/me. I'd say the same if we were talking about Pres. John McCain right now.

Third, take a good look at the mug shot below. It is of Alan Dale Lee, a Pasco County, FL, man, jailed recently for stabbing another man. Not another penny ever needs to be spent on anti-drug use campaigns. Lee's head shot is the best deterrent I've ever seen.

 

 

 

Fourth, Mike Duvall violated the rules of the game and the tenets of The Cowboy Code: He talked publicly about a sexual conquest. A real player wouldn't have done that. If you don't know the story, Duvall was a California state assemblyman...until yesterday, when he resigned after audio/video recordings surfaced of him bragging to a lobbyist in the state assembly chamber about how he - Duvall - had a mistress, had way too much sex with her, and liked to spank her because she's "such a bad girl." Some of you don't think affairs are that big a deal. I strongly disagree with you, but that's another post. For the record, Duvall now says he didn't have an affair. He just made up a story about a mistress to make himself seem cool, or as he described it, he engaged in "inappropriate storytelling." Hmmm, flashback to 8th grade. Sorry, I'm having trouble typing this 'cause I'm constantly drawn to Mr. Lee's mug shot above.

Fifth, it's Thursday. And my only televised guilty pleasure airs tonight: Real Housewives of Atlanta. Yes, I'm sure that if I continue to watch I'll catch something awful like junk rot, which will go nicely with the disease I'm certain I caught watching the first episode of Miami Social. But you can't live forever!

Finally, am I the only person concerned that classic Marvel Comics characters like Spiderman, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, and Wolverine, are gonna be integrated into Mickey Mouse cartoons now that Disney has purchased Marvel? Probably.

Till next time, follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett.

Grand Theft Auto Made Investors Blush

Take Two Interactive and Rockstar Games, who publish Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, part of the GTA video game series whose claim to fame is armed robbery, car-jacking, general auto theft, murder, and other assorted mayhem, has agreed to pay $20 million to investors who sued the company for including questionable moral content in the San Andreas edition.

What was that questional content, you ask? Perhaps one of the many car-jackings, robberies, or murders?

Nope. It was an "optional" sex scene.

A programmer on the game included a hidden scene, in which the star of the game can accept an invitation for "hot coffee" from a woman. Hot coffee apparently means sex.

When a computer hacker released a key of sorts that unlocked the hidden scene, parents found out and got angry. The company's stock suffered. And then investors grew angry.

So let me get this straight: Parents, who for years have been OK with their kids playing this game series that sometimes features extreme, cold-hearted violent crime, were appalled that the San Andreas version included something so immoral as two animated characters gettin' it on?

And investors, who for years were happy to pour their money into a video game series that sometimes features extreme, cold-hearted violent crime, were upset not over the morality of the sex scene but over the fact that the scene's discovery caused them to lose money.

Hypocrites annoy me.

BTW, in the interest of full disclosure, I've played Grand Theft Auto, and I enjoyed it.

What? I never pretended the game had high moral character!

Coffee's good too.

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Careful what your family does; it might get YOU fired.

I hate straightforward titles, 'cause they take the surprise out of the following blog post, like this ethical doozy:

The town manager of Fort Myers Beach, Florida, was hired in March 2008, because the Fort Myers Beach Town Council believed he was a good government administrator, based on his past performance as an administrator in other Florida communities and his vision for the management and future of Fort Myers Beach.

Good reasons to hire a man, no?

Earlier this week, that same town council voted  5 - 0 to dismiss Scott Janke "without cause" - the council's words, not mine - because they believe Janke's wife's job gives the wrong impression of what Fort Myers Beach is all about.

Anabela Mota Janke, AKA Jazella Moore, is a porn star. And the Fort Myers Beach council believes she gives the town a bad name.

Every time I write about porn and the like on this blog, it's inevitable that a few of you scold me for being a prude and for trying to legislate adult behavior.

And every time, I have to reiterate that your'e wrong, and I don't care what consenting adults do.

You wanna make porn or view it, or change your name to Buck Nekkid, or Golden Globes, go ahead. Ultimately, we're all responsible for our own actions and activities, and that's that.

But this isn't about the morality (or lack thereof) of the porn industry.

This is about a guy losing his job, 'cause his wife's job made elected politicians blush.

If you can be fired for what your spouse does for a living, what's next - fired for what your adult children do for a living, or for what your parents do for a living?

Don't laugh. What are you going to do when your boss tells you your 21-year-old coke dealer son's face was plastered across the front page of the local paper, and because of that he's going to have to demote you, because your "family" problems might make clients uncomfortable.

I'll tell you what you won't do. You won't shake your boss's hand and say "No problem, sir. This is a privately owned business, and you can do what you want with it!"

No, you're going to protest, insist to your boss that the demotion isn't fair, that your job performance has been stellar, and that you shouldn't suffer 'cause your kid is a criminal.

So even if you don't like porn - and mom, if you're reading this post I'm not quitting my job to become a porn industry lobbyist; I'm just playing Devil's advocate - consider how you'd feel if an adult relative's activities were weighed in your abilities to do your job.

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The dog pool ate got my me homework pregnant

A woman from Poland is claiming her daughter was recently impregnated in a situation akin to immaculate conception, so she is suing the place where the apparent miracle took place.

Magdalena Kwiatkowska and her 13-year-old daughter recently vacationed in Egypt. When they returned home, the daughter told Kwiatkowska that she was pregnant. But Kwiatkowska says her daughter didn't meet boys on the trip, so the girl must've been the victim of "stray sperm" in the hotel pool.

That's right. Stray sperm.

I'm not sure whether I think this is an old-fashioned hustle, or if Kwiatkowska is just naive.

Maybe it's neither. But there's no way that kid is carrying Jesus or anything. Possibly the Antichrist.

Whatever. If the mom is right about the cause of her daughter's spermination, I'll never get in a hotel pool again.

Need I remind you? Stray sperm. They don't make hot enough showers for that.

Speaking of bodily fluids and swimming pools, when I was a little kid floundering about the neighborhood pool, there was an urban legend - at least I think it was just legend - that if you peed in the swimming pool you'd be caught 'cause there was invisible ink in the water that would have a chemical reaction with the urine, and create a cloud of black or blue ink around you.

If that ink pee thing wasn't legend and Kwiatkowska isn't a total headcase, you'd think they could put something in pools to alert other swimmers to "stray sperm."

Ha! I couldn't even write that last sentence with a straight face.

http://twitter.com/jamesburnett

What's good for the goose King is good for the gander Hannity

I catch lots of grief from some of you for "picking on" Larry King over what I perceive to be softball interviews he often does with celebrity types.

There was the Paris Hilton interview, on which King let her giggle away questions about her alleged drug use and never asked her to explain being caught on tape calling people ni**ers.

You know what? I'm going to stop there, lest I get accused of picking on Mr. King again. 'Cause I am not a basher of moderate-to-liberal TV hosts anymore than I'm a basher of conservative TV hosts.

In fact, I'm pretty damned fair and balanced! So I have to call out Sean Hannity for conducting an interview with celebutante Kim Kardashian on one of his Fox News Channel shows the other night, and lauding her for being a role model to some girls.

That's right, role model. In case you were wondering, this is indeed the same Kim Kardashian who made a sex tape two years ago that was later marketed and sold for seven figures.

Now, I'm not a prude. I don't follow her career closely. But I think Kim Kardashian's pretty. Not as pretty as Mrs. B, but pretty. Still, last I checked, getting buck nekkid on camera and doing the horizontal mambo is not the stuff of role models to young girls.

The funny thing is Hannity said this to Kardashian about her  bio: "I want to ask you. Why Playboy? That's the only thing I didn't understand. That didn't make sense. And I know you went through that in the first year of your show."

So the "only" thing that didn't make sense was her posing for Playboy? Really? Not the sex tape?

Note to Hannity: Demote the segment producer who failed to inform you (or remind you) of the tape...assuming you didn't already know.

What!?!?! Hey, if Larry can take it, Sean should be able to also!

Gotta run. BTW, credit goes to Gawker for the idea for this post.

And don't forget to follow me at http://twitter.com/jamesburnett